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Round Table: Dialogue among Civilizations United Nations, New York, 5 September 2000 Provisional verbatim transcription

Address by Kamran Elatlian (Observer, United States of America)

Mr. Kamran Elatlian: Thank you for giving me time. Allow me to talk about a new civilization. We have been talking about dialogue among civilizations but let me tell you about the new civilization. What if I told you that there is a civilization where Arabs and Israelis not only do not hate each other but work together for a common cause. What if I told you that there is a civilization where Indians and Pakistanis do not fight but work together, they cooperate. What if I told you there is a civilization where Taiwanese and mainland Chinese work together, where North and South Koreans work together, where Muslims do not hate Christians and the Christians do not hate Jews, and the Jews do not hate anyone else.

I am not talking about a utopia but about information technology civilization. As a founder of ten hi-tech companies having branches all over the world I can tell you that in our companies with subsidiaries all over the world we do not care where people come from or what their religion is. We really do not give a damn X excuse my language X about the blood, about the heritage. All we care about is whether they are good human beings and how smart are they to go and change the world. That is all we care about. We hire people based on equality and we give them the tools to change the world. As a result of that we started at Silicon Valley, a whole new civilization, a whole new culture, which is a global culture but not all the same. We celebrate diversity. In hi-tech culture our breakfast might be American, lunch might be Chinese, and for dinner we might have suchi. We love the fact that we can sample and celebrate diversity and different backgrounds.

What has enabled us to think this way is the information technology revolution, because in using the technology we talk to each other, we communicate with each other, not on a monthly or weekly basis but on an hourly basis, minute by minute, and hear opposing views from our own employees, from our board of directors, on a bit by bit basis. It is okay for people to call me a lousy German because at times I am a lousy German. It is okay for people not to agree with me because I am not always right. I know better than that. Through this culture we have created a platform where everybody is equal. When using the Internet, the world-wide web, President Clinton, President Khatami and all the leaders of the world, even with all their power, only have as much right as a ten-year-old boy or girl sitting in an elementary school. In an Internet chat room everybody gets a chance to talk. It is global democracy in action.

Actually Mr. Picco I am very happy that the United Nations is not supporting this effort financially because I think this should be an effort supported by the citizens of the world to create dialogue between the citizens of the world. We all can be citizens of this new great world that is upon us and the potential is unbelievable. Unlike the industrial revolution, which was dependent on destroying the government, creating smoke-stack industries X look at what the steel barons, the robber barons and the oil barons did in depleting the world's resources X the information technology revolution creates new wealth out of thin air, all based on movements of the zeros and ones on thin air. That is why huge new wealth has been created and it is possible to equalize, to create a level playing field, even in the poorest countries in the world. It is all based on intellect, and the spirit. Whoever has the right intellect and the right spirit has a chance in the new brave world. I have seen that coming piece by piece. As I travel all over the world I see the new Internet generation is changing the world.

My last comment would be, why not call this the dialogue of the citizens, and give the citizens of the world a tool called the Internet world-wide web, which allows millions of people simultaneously to talk with each other. If I am addressing all the leaders of the world then I say, do not be scared of what the citizens might say. They might make decisions that are not acceptable to you. Accept it and go with the flow or you will not be there in the brave new world that is upon us.

Mr. Picco: My UNESCO colleagues told me to make sure that I had a debate and not a series of monologues. I hope you will take this for what it was, a very good, honest provocation. I hope you will have a couple of minutes each to give me your thoughts, but I wanted to introduce this way of thinking because having myself spent 20 years until 1992 in this bureaucracy, and having discovered in the last eight years a different kind of world, I thought I would share with you some of the different inputs that can come into a discussion on something called a dialogue among civilizations.

One input, of course, comes from the information technology industry, which is quite wide and effective in some way. We may disagree, so I shall now, with your permission, have a quick round of one minute each of comment on what Kamran or anybody else has said. Then at the end I will ask my former boss and only great Secretary-General, Javier Perez de Cuellar, to give us a few minutes of his thoughts. He started and so I thought I would ask him to conclude this conversation. We will start with Professor Koh and his comment on information technology. After all, Korea is a great player.

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